


past tense, future imperfect

by crookedspoon



Series: Exchange Fics [43]
Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gift Fic, Possibly Pre-Slash, Speculation, Trailer Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-28 20:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Watching Jason is like staring through a twisted mirror at his past self. He doesn't want him to make the same mistakes.





	past tense, future imperfect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stevieraebarnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevieraebarnes/gifts).

> This was inspired by [the latest trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lULgyPaGRLg) for the second season.

It's like a déjà-vu, or an out of body experience.

Dick is standing in the doorway to the communications room of their old Titans hangout, where cobwebs are still clinging to the upper corners like remnants of a memory, but the equipment is polished and state-of-the-art.

Jason walks up to the others, all easy confidence and bright smiles, wearing Dick's colors, Dick's name, greeting Dick's friends like he's known them his entire life. The bonds between them are new, untested by the sands of time, but forged in battle and all the deeper for it.

Watching Jason be accepted into their midst is like staring through a twisted mirror at his past self: the honest excitement, the boundless energy, hiding that edge of darkness that lies hidden just beneath the surface.

If the others notice it, they don't let on. They're just as welcoming and companionable as they would be with any of the old Titans members. Every ally still alive is cause for celebration, always.

Relief wars with apprehension and the knowledge of the inevitable. That death comes for them all, that they might have to watch him die before it's their own time to go. It's in the lines of their faces, in the uncomfortable shifting of limbs that had once been broken, in the way their fingers brush over scuff marks on their uniforms, as if scrubbing off blood that is not (or no longer) there.

"He's cute," Donna says, suddenly beside him.

"Jesus!" he curses. Not many people can sneak up on him, but she makes it seem effortless. As casually as possible, he drops his hand from the space above his heart, where his Robin emblem used to be.

"Your brother. He's eager. Like a puppy. A bit like you were when you were younger."

"He's not my brother," Dick mutters. 

He's never spared much of a thought as to what they are to each other, exactly. He didn't want to acknowledge his bitter feelings by calling Jason his rival before, and he's certainly not going to give Jason the satisfaction now. He's over the whole 'new Robin' deal; the kid has proved himself. 

Which doesn't mean that Dick is going to start calling him family yet. If Bruce insists on thinking of them that way, that's his business.

Still, so much has changed between them since they first butted heads.

"No comment on the puppy-likeness." Donna nudges him playfully. 

Dick rolls his eyes. He's long since stopped dignifying her with a response when she's intent on teasing him. Besides, he's never been like a puppy, so the comparison is flawed. Although she may be onto something with Jason. He's like a bloodhound in training.

"No comment on the cuteness either," she adds in a lower voice, her eyes crinkling. It makes her look more harrowed than amused; she's trying to lift the mood as much for herself as for him. "Got it."

"So, what's the deal here?" Jason asks. He's scrounged up a beer from somewhere and is picking off the label, peering at Dick from the side, as if trying to ignore he was there while at the same time keeping an eye on him. "We gonna shack up here or what?"

"_We _aren't doing anything," Dick says. "Rachel and Gar are going to stay here. Donna, too. You can go back to the manor. We'll call you when you're needed."

"No way, man. I'm part of the team now, remember? You can't just bench me because you feel threatened."

Dick quirks an eyebrow. "Threatened?" _That's cute._

"Yeah. You're afraid that I'm gonna steal your show here."

"Really? Is that what you think?"

"You're not denying it."

Jason is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, mimicking Dick's posture. The bottle in his hand and his casual slouch make it just different enough not to stand out to the untrained eye.

Jason eyes him again, as though wondering whether Dick noticed.

Dick would have thought that Jason had gotten over his hero worship during their first falling out. That Dick had thoroughly disabused the kid of the notion that Robin – that _he, _Dick Grayson, former Robin – was anything to strive to be. Or had tried to, anyway. No use getting through that thick skull of his. It's another thing they both have in common.

"I never got thank you, you know," Dick says and he shifts to give Jason his full attention.

Jason blinks, and in his surprise, his surly expression slips.

"For rescuing me from Trigon's thrall."

Despite the fallout between them, Jason hadn't hesitated to come to his aid when Dawn and Hank had asked him to. It had been Robin's appearance that put the first cracks in Trigon's influence over Dick, who had struggled to reconcile the image of a running, kicking, _flying _Robin to the illusion he had been fed.

Dick's gaze flicks down to where Jason's legs are crossed at the ankles. His fingers twitch and he has to keep himself from reaching out. None of what he was shown had been real, and yet he remembers viscerally how much of a shock it had been to see Jason bound to a wheelchair, remembers how helpless he had felt about it. A Robin should never have to be permanently shackled to the ground.

"You got it, bro." Jason shrugs and cuffs him with his elbow. "Wouldn't miss my chance to save the day and your ass at the same time."

–-

Dick can play the leader of their little group all he wants; he's not the boss of Jason. And he's damn well not gonna keep Jason away from the action, when it's sure to unfold here. Why else would he gather the others in this place?

_We'll call you when you're needed. _Jason snorts. Yeah, right. More like never. Despite his show of gratitude, Grayson wouldn't be sad to never see him again. Until the next time Jason saves his ass.

Too bad for him that Jason has already decided to stay. It's not like he's going to take up anyone's space. There are enough rooms to comfortably accommodate all of them and still have some to spare.

–-

It hadn't been Dick's first idea to let Jason stay, but the kid is harder to shake than the summer flu, and eventually, Dick begins to see the opportunity in it: as long as Jason is around, Dick can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't cause any trouble.

He thinks of himself at that age, with all his anger and his pain, but no way to channel it. Bruce had not given him an effective way of dealing with his demons, but he could try to provide for Jason what Bruce could not for him. They all could. In fact, he'd prefer it if the others chipped in. 

Trigon had brought Dick face to face with those darker urges he had always tried to keep at bay. He had rejected them before when he had rejected being Robin, but Trigon had dragged him right back to that place. Only this time, it hadn't been his parents' killer he'd wanted to take revenge on. It had been Bruce.

The worst of it is that it had felt just. Killing Bruce had felt like overcoming something, like there was power in crossing that line. Like everything would be alright now, because he was in control.

But he had been the furthest thing from it, merely a puppet in Trigon's game of shadows.

He may be free from Trigon's influence now, but he still carries the illusory memory of killing his mentor with him. That is a guilt he does not know hot to process yet. Nor does he know if he wants to.

Dick wants to show Jason that there's a better path than the one he's been on, but before he can do that, before he can become a mentor, he first has to become the best version of who he is.

If he does not, he risks becoming like the Batman in his vision.

–-

Not everyone is as excited to be here as Jason is. It might be the vibe he's getting from the place, because it's not a good one. Gar and Rachel seem to sense it, too: the unease spreading through the former Titans.

More than once he's overheard Donna on the phone with someone, arguing about whether or not staying is a good idea. Whether or not the person on the other end of the line should join her here.

"I need to be here, Garth," she says one day. "But their ghosts are everywhere. It's killing me."

The mention of ghosts sticks out to Jason, but no matter how much he digs, he can't unearth whether someone might have died in this place; despite his Bat-level access, the records are sealed to him.

When they're not out catching bad guys, Jason uses the extra time to train. Bruce has given him a regimen and he intends to increase it.

It brings him face to face – or fist to face, on occasion – with Dick, who trains relentlessly, as though he had something to prove. Most likely, that he's still in control. Jason would have a lot of shit to work through, too, if his mind had been enslaved by a demon.

He offers to fight Dick as often as possible. Mostly to catch a couple of pointers Dick wouldn't share with him otherwise. But also, in part, to give the man something else to think about. (Definitely not to catch glimpses of Dick without his shirt on.)

Dick has been off somehow, since Trigon. Darker, more sinister. Donna says so, too. She also says she's keeping an eye on him, but since she obviously has her own shit going on, Jason has taken on the task. (Which, again, has nothing to do with Dick's looks.)

Training with Dick is a good place to start.

"You're overcompensating on your left foot and it's costing you your balance," Dick says and Jason definitely hears Bruce in that statement. Not like Bruce hasn't been telling him the same. At least now he has confirmation.

"Do-over?" Jason asks, lying sprawled gracelessly on the ground, Dick's bo staff pressing into the underside of his jaw and tipping his head back.

Dick's gaze is intense as he holds out his hand. Jason's mouth dries. It takes him a moment to register that Dick is trying to help him up. Once Jason is on his feet again, Dick tucks his staff under his arm and uses the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. Jason tries valiantly, but he can't stop his eyes from trailing lower.

The training sessions are starting to become a routine between them until they're not anymore. Until Dick picks himself a new protégé. And not just any protégé. It had to be the weird girl who'd attacked that officer.

Jason doesn't like it. He doesn't like it one bit.

"Who is she?" he asks Donna, who has become something of a confidante to him.

Initially, Jason had sought out Donna because she knew Dick longest. He'd hoped to learn more about him, things that even Bruce didn't know. Donna had corroborated a lot of the details he already knew about Grayson, and they'd bonded over their shared concern for him. Well, Donna's concern and Jason's... whatever it was. He's not concerned – that would be patronizing – but he's also not convinced Dick's judgment can be trusted fully.

They're in the surveillance room, monitoring the feed. One of the split screens shows Dick fighting the new girl. DIck is using his bo staff whereas she appears to be wielding a sword.

Donna is just as wary of her as he is. Apart from Kory, she used to be the only one who managed to get through to Dick when there's something he needs to hear. Since taking in this new girl, however, even Donna has been having an increasingly difficult time in getting Dick to listen to her.

"Rose Wilson," she says, pulling up the girl's file on one of the screens. "Ravager. She's Slade Wilson's daughter."

"Slade Wilson, as in Deathstroke the Terminator? Why is she here, man?"

Donna narrows her eyes at him, disbelief obvious in them. 

"To draw him out, of course."

"So, you think he's gonna bite?" Jason asks as nonchalantly as possible. He doesn't want to appear to be prying even when that's exactly what he's doing.

Dick eyes him as he pats his face dry. "You're the first person to not give me shit about my decision to take her in."

"How do you know I'm not secretly giving you shit anyway?"

"Your voice." Ah. Grayson, ever the detective.

Jason shrugs. "Can't be one to judge. My dad wasn't exactly a shining example of a role model. But Bruce gave me a chance anyway." He throws in a cheeky grin. "Despite me busting his hubcaps."

The beginning of a smile curves the edges of Dick's lips upwards and lightens his perpetually solemn face somewhat. Jason calls that a victory.

"So what's the deal between you and Deathstroke?" Jason asks, putting both feet in his mouth.

The smile is gone quicker than it came. "We have a history."

And that's that. Dick slings his towel around his neck and puts their weapons away. Jason knows when he's being given the cold-shoulder treatment, but he ignores it.

"Well, duh. I mean what kind?"

Dick turns his stony gaze to Jason again, and Jason has never seen hatred so intense on the man's face. Or any man, for that matter.

"A bloody one."

Jason can't let this go; he's deathly curious. It makes him not especially delicate when he breaches the topic with Donna. Her face turns into a grim mask even before the question is out of his mouth.

"We don't talk about that."

"Not talking about it is obviously not doing anyone a favor."

It takes some convincing, though not as much as he thought, to make her confide in him. If he didn't know any better, he'd be tempted to think it was her Lasso of Persuasion at work on herself, but it's more likely that she's really needed to talk to someone about this.

"Deathstroke," she says, her voice rough, "he killed two of our best friends." 

"Oh fuck."

"Wally West and Roy Harper. Two of the original Titans members." Jason can practically hear her bones creak in her clenched fist. "And he got away with it."

"Then why aren't you helping Dick get him?"

Injuries are a dime a dozen when you're a vigilante. You take those in stride. Wounds close, bones heal, and you move on if you can. Death is always a possibility, but until then it had seemed so distant to him. Like he – like any of them – were untouchable.

"Because it's only gonna end one way: with even more bloodshed." She looks down at her fists, trembling and white. Bloodless. "The worst thing is that I don't know if what Dick is after is justice, or revenge." 

She exhales a shaky breath, and Jason squeezes her shoulder, not knowing what else to do. At least, not for her.

"If it were me, I wouldn't know it either."

The room is dark safe for the bluish white light of the monitors illuminating Dick's face. Here, it looks even more ghostly and bruised than it does by daylight. 

"Hey," Jason says and leans against the edge of the desk. He offers Dick a beer. 

"Hey."

Dick doesn't take his eyes away from the reports on the latest Deathstroke sightings, nor does he accept the bottle. So Jason places it next to himself on a filing cabinet.

"I heard what happened. With Deathstroke." 

Dick's mouth flattens into a thin line.

Jason's skin is crawling with restlessness to see Dick this withdrawn and simmering. At other times their silence might have been companionable, but now it's tense in the electronic hum of the machines and the clicking of Dick's fingers on the keys.

Dick's fingers are elegant and long, the knuckles scarred, the palms rough from handling weapons all his life. Jason wants to reach out, brush his own scarred knuckles over the warm skin, place his hand on top of Dick's, feel the callouses against the pad of his thumb. He drums his fingers to a random beat instead.

He finishes his beer, replaces the empty bottle with the one on the filing cabinet. It's not cold anymore, but it'll do. Dick continues researching.

Eventually, that bottle is empty, too, and Jason none the braver for it. Fuck it. He's run out of patience.

"Hey?"

"Hm?"

Jason has been thinking long and hard about what he wants to say to Dick. About what Dick might need, and what kind of person he wants to be. In the end, it all boils down to one thing.

"I just wanted to say, I got you, bro." He puts his hand on Dick's shoulder. "Whatever you decide to do with Deathstroke, I'm one hundred percent behind you."

Dick's eyes meet his for the first time that night. They're depthless and dark, despite the light irises around them, and not for the first time, Jason wants to run his thumb over those lashes. That is not why he's here.

Dick tears his gaze away again, breaking off the connection, the _understanding _he thought they'd had.

"Something has to be done," Dick concedes slowly. "But I can't do it. I can't go there. Not after everything."

"You don't have to." Jason shifts around in his seat to face Dick full frontal. "You act like that decision is yours alone to shoulder, bro. We're a team, remember?"

"I can't ask this of you. Of any of you."

"Sure you can. That's what teams are for." Jason punches his shoulder. "Not so that one dude can go off on his own and be a martyr."

Dick frowns at him.

"Trust us, man. We're here for you."

They hold each other's gaze, and this time, it's like the understanding clicks.

Almost imperceptibly, Dick nods.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _White Teeth _by Zadie Smith.


End file.
